There’s a sign here in Newstalk Towers that says madness is doing the same thing over and over again and knowing you’re gonna fail.
I know the feeling. Every day there seems to be yet another Hiqa report outlining deficiencies in residential homes for disabled people. Hiqa set standards. Those running the homes invariably fail to meet some or all of them.
It is mind-blowing that any centre would fail EVERY standard set. These include medical standards. This is really worrying. Basic medical standards were not being met. Patients were being failed. As I’ve said before, we can’t blame overcrowding for this mess. Each ‘unit’ is modelled on a ‘normal’ home with five or six residents receiving care. Not exactly Friday night in A+E. Basic medical care failures here point to what?
Do the medical needs of residents matter?
Where is the professional pride of the staff providing care? Again, we are talking about failures in medical STANDARDS. Anywhere else, we would be screaming for a public enquiry but are we hiding behind a fig leaf of ‘but funds are tight so meeting standards is really, really hard’? Do we care about what happens in residential homes?
Home or homes? That is the question. These small units were set up as a reaction to warehouse-style homes of the past. They were a place where you could call home. Again, we need to ask tough questions of staff and management here. These are people’s homes we are talking about. It’s as simple as that. Not rocket science. Common sense.
We all have homes. We all know what it means to have a home. We create it in our own image and as a place we feel safe in. It has nothing to do with budgets or health policies. We all have standards that we expect those who share our homes to share. Think of the numerous arguments you could have about stacking the dish washer. Transfer that to a ‘care home' setting. Would you really want a drugs trolly sitting beside the TV? This isn’t a budgetary issue. It’s basic home management. Rat droppings on the floor? You clean them up and don’t say, ‘but I’m a professional. It’s not my job.'
Madness. Doing things over and over again knowing you will get the same result. Will this be last time I write about this? I think not. That makes me mad.
